November

Contemporary Art in Turkey lacks public sponsorship, which means it is shaped by corporate support and investments of industrial families. These businesses have their own interests and thus threaten the independence of the supported artists and their projects.
While more and more artists live and work in Turkey and galleries are popping up everywhere in Istanbul, there is still a strong need for independent support of artists producing substantial art works, which might not sell well at commercial galleries.

Spotting this need, AR Corporate Group launched FULL Art Prize in 2012 as the nation’s first ever privately funded contemporary art prize to encourage promising new artists in their quest to reach wider audiences. Contemporary artists under the age of 40 and citizens of the Republic of Turkey or other country citizens residing in Turkey for over two years are eligible for the annual competition.

FULL Art Prize was announced with an open call and artists submitted applications comprised of a maximum 10 works/projects created in the past five years through a website over a three month submission period from January 2012 onwards.

Artists Işıl Eğrikavuk and Aslı Çavuşoğlu were awarded the inaugural FULL Art Prize in a ceremony held in İstanbul on 7 November 2012 at the Hasköy Yarn Factory. The prize, which carries a 25,000 TL award, was split between the two artists.

For three months, the public was able to vote for one of the 13 finalists on a website showing their portfolios. The artist selected through public vote was Cengiz Tekin, who received the 5,000 TL Public Jury Award.

The exhibition titled "sevennovembertwothousandtwelve", curated by Öykü Özsoy, featuring the works of the 2012 competition’s finalists, was exhibited until 28 November at the Hasköy Yarn Factory.

FULL Art Prize is also creating a visual online database including the participating artists to make their work accessible to an international public.
Furthermore, the prize committee prepared a book presenting the 13 semi-finalists’ works. Contributors of the book are Evrim Altuğ, Öykü Özsoy, Zeynep Öz, Özge Ersoy and Azra Tüzünoğlu.

Coinciding with its 40th anniversary, the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) launched the 1st Istanbul Design Biennial under the theme of 'Imperfection', which took place from 13 October – 12 December 2012.
The first Istanbul Design Biennial has adopted this theme at the suggestion of Mr Deyan Sudjic, a member of its advisory board who is the Director of the Design Museum in London.

According to Özlem Yalım Özkaraoğlu, the Istanbul Design Biennial director, the design and creative industries have become more important in Turkey over the last 10 years, resulting in a need for a local biennial for the local design community.

The growth of Turkey’s economy has highlighted the importance of innovation and design, and at the same time stimulated the development of creative industries. One of the Biennial’s primary goals is to raise awareness of Turkey’s creative potential on an international level.
Featuring urban design, architecture, industrial, graphic, fashion and new media design, alongside relevant creative products and projects, the Biennial hosted over 100 projects by nearly 300 designers and architects from 46 countries, in two main exhibitions curated by Emre Arolat and Joseph Grima.

'Musibet', hosted by the
Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, was curated by Emre Arolat. The show was divided into two sub-exhibits: 'the Aestheticization of Context' and 'Anti-Context in Design along the Axis of the Grand Transformation', putting the spotlight on Istanbul’s current urban architecture and design. The exhibitions comprised more than 30 projects of 165 designers and architects, displaying multiple faces of grand urban transformations continuously being realized in Istanbul, as well as in other geographies.
Having taught at several universities, Arolat is a well-know figure of the Istanbul architecture and design world.

Joseph Grima’s
'Adhocracy'
exhibition, curated in collaboration with Elian Stefa, Ethel Baraona Pohl, and Pelin Tan, was set up in the Galata Greek Primary School. The show focused on the contemporary design scene in the wake of a wave of social and technological revolutions in recent years and featured over 60 projects by 120 designers and architects.
Joseph Grima is a Milan-based architect, editor, writer and curator as well as the editor of Domus, the internationally renowned magazine of contemporary architecture.

The four-day conference 'Ideas City', organized with Audi Urban Future Initiative featured a series of workshops, a lecture by New York City Planning Commissioner and Chair of the New York City Planning Commission Amanda Burden, and the announcement of the winner of the second 'Audi Urban Future Initiative Award'.

For two months, the Design Biennial transformed Istanbul into a city of design, welcoming over 44,600 visitors of specific exhibitions and a total of 115,000 including parallel events.
Part of the side events was an academy programme, workshop exhibitions, a seminar programme, film screenings and design walks.
Students of urban design, architecture, industrial design, new media design, and fashion from various universities in Istanbul, Ankara, and İzmir organized workshops, competitions, and special projects within the Biennial theme.

Exhibition View of Adhocracy

Stratigraphic Manufactury by
Unfold, an Antwerp-based design group in operation.
This project explores how 3D-printed objects created from identical digital files can be as varied and unique as hand-made objects. (Adhocracy Exhibition) Courtesy Kristof Vrancken/Unfold.

The jury of the Nam June Paik Award 2012 – International Media Art Award of the Arts Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia (Kunststiftung NRW) - praises the work of Cevdet Erek (born 1974, lives and works in Istanbul) as an ‘inspiring project which transforms the neutral architecture of the exhibition space into a fantastical and poetic place’. Erek’s installation can be seen as part of the award exhibition at Kunstmuseum Bochum, which presents the works of the seven shortlisted candidates. The show will be on display until 13 January 2013.

The jury selecting the winner based on the exhibition was composed of Ory Dessau, critic and curator (a.o. Herzliya Biennial of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv), Manu Park, Director of the Nam June Paik Center in Seoul, and Dr. Eva Schmidt, Director of Kunstmuseum Siegen.

SSS – Shore Scene Soundtrack is about mimicking the sea, or more generally about imitating a common natural phenomenon by using two hands and a piece of carpet. It was conceived as an ongoing experimentation with performance, memory, the body, technology, interactivity, instruments, nature and situation specificity.

The installation comprises a synthetic carpet found on the exhibition premises. Additional elements in the installation are a video of the performance, the SSS book and several drawings illustrating hand movements, which the artist may chose to include or not depending on the exhibition context.

The video shows a carpet being rubbed by a half-naked man with a series of massage-like hand movements. The carpet seen in the video originates from the artist’s living room and is placed on a Steinway concert grand piano. The image is interrupted at irregular intervals by short scenes, for instance a shot zooming in on the hands or showing the chatting sound engineers behind the window of the recording room. “[The book] SSS can be seen as an attempt to share a discovery. It explains in detail to the reader how to mimic the sea, and how this can be done simply for oneself, or formally as a performance.

Video of the artist explaining his work.

Cevdet Erek studied Architecture at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul and Music at the Center for Advanced Studies in Music at the Istanbul Technical University. He creates sound installations which are seamlessly integrated into the architecture of the exhibition space. In early 2012 he presented work at the Kunsthalle Basel and took part in dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel.

From 10 October 2012 until 6 January 2013 the Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton in Paris is showing an exhibition focusing on the Turkish contemporary art scene with a selection of 11 conceptual artists from Turkey. Hervé Mikaeloff curated the exhibition titled “Journeys - Wanderings in Contemporary Turkey,” and brings both established and emerging artists together.

Each year, since its opening in 2006, Espace Louis Vuitton focuses on a different country’s art scene. After Russia, [South] Korea, Chile and Indonesia, they decided to explore Turkey's art scene in 2012.

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